New Book Reveals Wagner’s Prison Recruitment and Deadly Fighting in Ukraine

A new book drawing on the testimony of a former Wagner mercenary offers a harrowing account of combat in Ukraine, describing small groups of men sent to face tanks and superior forces.

The account sheds light on the Russian militia’s recruitment of prisoners and the extreme dangers faced by those deployed to the battlefield. It portrays fighting marked by severe imbalances in manpower and firepower.

According to the former mercenary’s testimony, men were pushed into confrontations with little apparent prospect of survival. His description presents a picture of bloody attrition rather than combat between evenly matched forces.

The book places a former fighter’s experience at the centre of its examination of Wagner’s methods. Its claims offer a grim view of the human cost of Russia’s war in Ukraine, particularly for recruits sent into highly dangerous engagements.